Hawaiian Airlines Inc., the state's largest air carrier, said it carried about 81,000 more passengers in August compared to the same month a year earlier as it added more interisland flights.

The carrier reported 725,272 passengers during the month. That compared with 644,278 a year earlier.

The average number of seats it filled on flights was lower, however.

The Honolulu-based airline said the percentage of its seats occupied on flights dropped to 83.8 percent in August from 87.4 percent a year earlier.

It said the decline occurred because of the expanded interisland schedule and because it raised fares on its Mainland flights, resulting in a lower load factor.

As a result, the number of revenue passenger miles -- a metric that captures how many miles paying passengers were flown -- fell by 4.2 percent to 684.7 million miles.